Farewell Baka
by chidogs
Summary: I have discovered the Dragonball universe. At the end of the very last episode of GT, Vegeta stands watching the dragon take Goku away. His expression stuck in my mind and I had to give him thoughts. Would Vegeta finally admit to having feelings?


Farewell Baka

Disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever owned any of the Dragonball, Z or GT characters or stories. I just borrow them now and then and return them a little worse for wear.

So, are you really gone this time, baka? Or is this another one of your games? Will you appear out of nowhere with that simple grin on your face as if you had only been gone a few minutes instead of a few years? Of course everyone, including that loud wife of yours will make a fuss but still forgive you. After all, you are the hero of the earth. And you did it again. You beat the evil dragons. You beat the greatest of them all. You managed to call on everyone who had ever known you to give their energy to you and they did it willingly. Why was that, Kakarot? I, who am a prince, could once have expected the loyalty of a planet. What is it about you that inspires the loyalty of a galaxy, a universe? You, an idiot third class baka. Damn, why is that Kakarot?

It was alarming and oddly disturbing to see you as a child, Kakarot. I had never known you as a child. Or should I say that I had never know you when you were the size of a child, as you often act like one even as an adult. Yet still, there are times when, despite myself, I catch a glimpse of something in the shadows of your eyes, a glint of humor, and sparkle of amusement. And after I have seen that, I sometimes wonder just how much of the idiot you really are. Or is this just the way you wish to be seen? I have never been completely sure. If you were truly a fool, would so many people flock to you, like you, admire you? I do not know. The people of this little mud ball are easily fooled. But, it isn't just the people of this one planet, and no one, particularly you, could fool the whole galaxy.

We did fight together on this one, at the last battle. And thanks to my woman, I was able to match your Super Saiyan 4 power. What a feeling. I will manage to do it myself someday, I promise you that, Kakarot. It is something you will want to see, will you not? And we will test ourselves against each other once more. Won't we? Damn it, fool, won't we?

I have a feeling, Kakarot. It is a feeling that I am not used to having. When you left with the dragon, the others began to wander off, convinced I am sure, that this was just another of your short exits from this dimension, and you would soon return. In time for dinner, your nag of a wife believed. Even your half-breed brats did not seem overly concerned. No one stayed, except the little offspring of your eldest. Somehow, I believe, she felt the same thing that I did. We both stood there, at the sight of your victory, where the sky was once more blue. My eyes followed the now invisible path of the dragon that had carried you away. Somehow, I kept watching, hoping perhaps to see him bring you back. But it didn't happen. Then, I saw the clothing on the ground, by the giant abyss in the ground. Your child-size clothing, rent and torn from the battle. You had worn those things when you rode the dragon into the sky. Yet now they were here, lying as if discarded in the dirt by the deep pit. Something in me broke. I spoke gruffly to the child and told her to care for your things. Because, baka, I suddenly sensed that you might not be coming back this time. That thought froze me for a moment. And I was unsure of how I would deal with that idea. A glance at the child made me feel a chill I didn't expect, and when I saw tears in her eyes, I realized that she shared my thought. And I twisted away to hide the unexpected burning in my own eyes.

But why should I feel anything more than relief that I was now freed from having to deal with your vacuous grin, your silly ways, the way you postured when you did something foolish? I should be laughing aloud at the fact that I no longer had to deal with your hounding me to constantly spar, with your pretense that we were actually, in some form, "friends". Did you honestly believe that? Were you that naïve? That is, of course, a foolish question. Because you _did_ believe that. Whether you were naïve or not I do not know. You believed it because it was what you wanted. And I have never been able to fathom why. Why would you, the innocent, indecently good, savior of the planet, want to have a murderous Saiyan for a friend? You already had a bunch of worthless humans and a Namek as friends. As if a third class baka like you could even presume to be friends with a prince. Yet you did. And you ignored me when I insulted you time and time again. You ignored me when I was rude. You ignored me when I looked down on you and flaunted my pride and heritage. I could never understand how you could do that, but you did. You called me "friend" despite my every deplorable action.

I stand here alone now. They are gone. All that is left is this hole in the ground. I should go too. I look back up into the sky before I begin to walk. I don't know why I do not feel like flying.

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Kakarot, it has been a long time now, since you left on the back of Shenron, the dragon. The others have gone on with their lives, secure in their belief that you will walk into the room someday soon, ready to slip into the day-to-day life again. But I no longer believe that. I feel an empty place inside, where once I had something of value that I never really understood. This planet of yours has corrupted me, Kakarot. I am no longer able to keep the distance between me and these people that surround me. I have discovered feelings, and though I fight them, they are there and have become a part of me. And one of those feelings is about that empty place. Fool that I am, I sometimes stare up into the night sky and try to feel your energy, stretching myself as far as I can, just as if you are only on a distant planet, and if I try hard enough I will catch a flicker of that powerful energy that you hold. It is a quest that is as doomed to failure as my earlier one of thinking I could someday beat you.

I will never have that chance, now, will I Kakarot? You and I will never spar again, or match each other level to level, until we are powered up as far as we can go for the sheer joy of feeling it. We will never join in fusion again, not that I really mind that, except for the incredible sense of power that the joining gave. I certainly will not miss the idiocy of the fusion dance, but I will miss the hilarity of watching you do it in your Super Saiyan 4 form. Ah, I could laugh at that image. I can see it so clearly. As I can see you, the only other pure blooded Saiyan there was. Do I miss you because you were of my extinguished race? Perhaps. I have had to admit that I _do_ miss you. Outrageous as it may seem, I find myself thinking more about you as time passes. And I remember less of the irritating habits you had than of the things that made you unique. Your courage, your strength, your compassion. You were something I did not know how to deal with. You could be ruthless in your own way, but never were you ruthless against the innocent. You saved it for the evildoers. The first time we battled I would have killed you, and yet you let me crawl away to be healed, refusing to let your little friend finish me. To this day, I do not think I fully understand how you could do that. And that was the sort of chance that you gave nearly everyone you encountered. You believed that there was good hidden in most, and you were willing to always give it a chance. Naïve? Perhaps. But, you were the only person in my life who's word I could believe. The only one that I could let myself trust.

Friend? I do not know. I had never had one. To this day, I still do not. But, Kakarot, perhaps that, in a strange way, that _is_ how I think of you. I resisted the concept, yet how else to explain the fact that I feel a little less since you have been gone. I have somehow lost that part of me that you complimented. Whether it was the way you grinned at my insults, or the way you humored me when we sparred, or the way you never took my harsh words seriously. Or perhaps it was just the simple fact that you accepted me, regardless of what horrible things I had done in my past. You turned your back on that part of me and saw more, what I could become. A Vegeta who could use his power to protect and guard rather that destroy and torment. No one else ever saw me that way. You alone saw that I could live on this planet, this godforsaken mud ball, and I could learn to love it. You saw that I could find a mate here to commit to, to actually have feelings for. You saw that I could actually be a father, raise a family, and create a life here that I never would have imagined.

And I guess, Kakarot, that that is what friends do.

I look once more into the night sky. I know you are gone forever now. I feel the ache inside of me at my acceptance of this fact. And now, I truly understand what it means to really have a friend. I know what it means to feel the loss of that bond. Pain does not frighten a Saiyan, we fight it, and cherish it, because it means we have fought well and hard. So, you may have been a third class baka, sometimes an idiot, but I will cherish this pain I feel because you are gone. You and I, Kakarot, we fought well and hard. And I will always miss you…..friend.


End file.
